Bee Facts

Bees are flying insects that are closely related to ants and wasps. They live in hives of up to 40,000 bees and play a very important role in nature by pollinating flowering plants. Find more facts about these remarkable insects below.

Bees are flying insects that are closely related to wasps and ants and there almost 20,000 species. The most common species of bees are honeybee, bumblebee and sweat bees.

Bees are found on every continent except Antarctica and in every habitat that has flowering plants.

Bees feed on nectar and pollen by using a long tongue.

Bees have antennae, two pairs of wings, enlarged hind feet, branched or feathered body hair, and some have a stinger.

Bees are adapted for feeding on pollen which they turn into honey (a worker bee must visit 4,000 flowers to make 1 tablespoon of honey).

Bees play a very important role in pollinating flowering plants and have fuzzy bodies that allows the pollen to stick to the bee.

The smallest bee is the dwarf bee which is about 2.1 mm (5/64 of an inch) long and the largest bee can grow to 39 mm (1.5 inches).

Crab spiders and assassin bugs hide in the flowers to capture the bees which makes collecting pollen dangerous work, but the primary reason honey bees are endangered is because of parasites.

Honey bees and bumble bees live in hives or colonies which at their peak can have up to 40,000 bees. The colony is made up of one queen bee, thousands of female worker bees which do not breed, and hundreds of male drone bees.

A honey bee queen may lay 2000 eggs per day during the spring but she also must lay 1000 to 1500 eggs per day when the bees are out gathering pollen to replace daily casualties.